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Danny closed his hand round her slender wrist to hold her back and looked down at her ruefully. ‘I would have a better time if you agreed to come with me,’ he admitted. ‘Just mates, no need to lay anything else on the line. Last chance, Chrissie. Why not live a little and give it a go?’
Blue eyes flaring with pained annoyance, Chrissie jerked her wrist free. ‘As I said, I’ve other plans—’
‘Some guy did a right number on you, didn’t he?’ Danny remarked, his face red with discomfiture as he moved away a step and thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘But all cats are not grey in the dark, Chrissie. If you still want a life, you have to reach out and take it.’
Breathing fast, Chrissie slid into the driver’s seat of her car and closed the door. She had wanted a life, an entirely different life from the one she now had. She had dreamt of climbing the academic ranks by pursuing a doctorate and of the freedom that would be hers once she was fully qualified. But life, Chrissie had discovered, had a habit of stabbing you in the back when you least expected it, of forcing a sudden rethink just when you were on the apparent brink of success. Now she was in no position to reach out and take anything because she had responsibilities that restricted her independence and her liberty. To her way of thinking the most shameful aspect was that she couldn’t get by without taking advantage of her sister’s generosity. Yet it could all have been so very different, had she only made the right decisions...
* * *
Long before Chrissie had met Jaul, Lizzie and Chrissie had inherited a tiny Greek island from their late mother. Lizzie’s husband, Cesare, had bought Lionos from the sisters for a small fortune. The sale of the island had taken place before Chrissie’s twins were even conceived and so Chrissie had opted to put the majority of her share of the money into a trust that she could not access until her twenty-fifth birthday. At the time she had thought that that was a sensible idea—the amount of money involved had made her head spin and Chrissie had a secret fear that she might have inherited her mother’s spendthrift ways. Francesca Whitaker had been extravagant and irresponsible with cash and Chrissie had wanted to carefully conserve her windfall for what she had assumed would be a more settled time in her life.
Now here she was, twenty-four years of age, and for the past year she had had to acknowledge that had she had the ability to use that money she had put away, she could, at least, have been financially independent. Instead, to enable her to follow a teaching career she’d had to share her sister’s nanny, Sally, to look after her own children—affording Sally’s services solely on her earnings as a teacher would have been impossible.
On the other hand, by following Cesare’s advice, she had made one good decision when she had used some of the money to purchase a two-bedroom apartment before she put the rest of it away where it couldn’t be touched. Furthermore she had bought the apartment outright, which meant she could afford to run a small car and at least contribute a healthy amount towards Sally’s salary. Of course to hear Lizzie tell it, Chrissie was doing Cesare and Lizzie a favour by keeping Sally gainfully employed while they were abroad. In the same way, when her sister and her brother-in-law and their children flew into London for one of their frequent visits, Chrissie moved into their town house with them and stayed until they departed again because it was more convenient for everyone that way.
Now, laden with her carrier bags of gifts and cards, Chrissie unlocked the door of her ground-floor apartment.
Sally appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Cup of tea?’ she asked, a curvy brunette with a wide smile.
‘I’d love one. No night out this evening?’ Chrissie teased, for Sally had a very healthy social life and was usually rushing back to Lizzie’s town house to dress up.
‘Not tonight...not unless I want to go into an overdraft!’ she joked, pulling a face.
Chrissie set her bags down and walked into the lounge. Two babies were playing with plastic bricks in the centre of the carpet. Both had a shock of blue-black curls and eyes so dark they were almost black. Tarif dropped his brick, crowed with delight and started to crawl eagerly towards her. Soraya laughed and, rarely as energetic as her brother, she lifted her arms high to be lifted.
‘Hello, my darlings,’ Chrissie said warmly, her face softening as she dropped to her knees to gather up Tarif before freeing up an arm to pull his sister close.
‘Mum-mum,’ Soraya said solemnly, a plump little hand touching her mother’s cheek gently.
Tarif tugged her hair and planted a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek, nestling as close as he could get. And all the worries and little annoyances of the day fell from Chrissie in the same moment. Her twins had owned her heart from the day of their birth. She had been so worried that she wouldn’t be able to cope with two babies but Lizzie had taken her home to the town house and showed her all the basics.
‘You’ll muddle through...we all do,’ Lizzie had assured her.
But nobody had warned Chrissie that when she looked at her children she would be overwhelmed by her love for them. While she was pregnant she had tried to think of them as Jaul’s children and she had deeply resented the position he had put her in. She hadn’t felt ready to be a mother and had shrunk from the challenge of becoming a single parent. But once the twins were born, she had only cared that her babies thrived and were happy.
‘I took them to the park this afternoon. Tarif threw a real tantrum when I took him off the swings,’ Sally confided. ‘He was throwing himself about so much I had to lay him down until he got it out of his system. I was really surprised.’
‘In the wrong mood, he’s challenging,’ Chrissie acknowledged ruefully. ‘But Soraya’s the exact same if you cross her. They like to test you out. They’re quite volatile.’
Very much like their father, Chrissie reflected helplessly. An image of Jaul flashed into her head, long blue-black hair loose on his broad shoulders, brilliant dark eyes shimmering with anger. Hotter than hot, she thought numbly. Hot-tempered, hot-blooded, hot in bed, hot in every way there was. A snaking quiver of forbidden heat washed through her taut length. But Jaul had also been incredibly stubborn, impulsive and unpredictable.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Sally asked, plucking the twins worriedly from their mother’s loosened grasp. ‘Sorry, you looked a bit pale and spaced out there for a moment.’
‘I’m fine.’ Chrissie flushed to the roots of her pale hair, scrambled up and hurried into the tiny kitchen to make the tea in Sally’s place.
Sometimes the past just leapt up and smacked her in the face without warning. A memory would dart through her and time would freeze, catapulting her backwards. A stray word or a familiar smell or piece of music could rip her apart in the space of seconds, leaving her no hiding place from the backwash of old pain. If she hadn’t loved Jaul, she would have got over him much more easily. But then she told herself that for the sake of her children she was glad that she had loved Jaul even if it hadn’t lasted, even though he had used her and lied to her and probably cheated on her as well.
The money his father had offered her had been the bottom line, telling her everything she needed to know about the rogue male, who had told her they were married and would be together for ever. Jaul thought that money was the perfect solution to every problem, magically soothing hurt feelings and disappointed hopes. His immense wealth had provided him with a smooth escape route from all such tiresome complications. ‘Together for ever’ had come with a hidden qualification; ‘together for ever’ had only lasted until Jaul had become bored. Unhappily, it had never occurred to Chrissie when she was with him that one day she would be a tiresome complication in his life too.
‘People expect me to be generous,’ he had told her once.
‘Just because you have it doesn’t mean you have to splash it around,’ Chrissie had countered. ‘That’s extravagant and wasteful and it looks like you’re showing off.’
Jaul had sent her an outraged glance. ‘I do not show off!’
Of course he had never had to show off to command attention. He was breathtakingly good-looking and guaranteed to turn female heads wherever he went and, if his looks didn’t do it for him, his flash sports cars, phalanx of bodyguards and luxury lifestyle had made their own very effective impression.
Chrissie passed a mug of tea to Sally, who had settled the twins back on the floor to play.
‘I’ve packed all their favourite toys and put them in my car. That’ll be one less thing for you to worry about when you’re packing up tomorrow,’ Sally told her.
Slamming a door shut on the memories attacking her, Chrissie smiled at the brunette. ‘Thanks but I’ve come to stay at the town house so often now that I reckon I could pack in my sleep. I can’t wait to see Lizzie and the kids,’ she confided.
‘Max and Giana will be fascinated by the twins now they’re more active,’ Sally confided.
‘Giana will be disgusted that they no longer stay where you put them.’ Chrissie laughed, picturing her bossy little toddler niece, who treated Tarif and Soraya like large dolls and held tea parties for them. ‘Or keep their hands off her toys.’
When Sally had gone, Chrissie fed the twins and put them in the bath before settling them into their cots for the night. While she read their nightly story to them, she was wondering where or indeed if she would have a job when the summer was over. She had only been teaching on a temporary contract, covering maternity leave, and permanent jobs were as scarce as hens’ teeth. That concern still in mind, she went to bed early and slept fitfully.
The next day Chrissie got up on automatic pilot to feed and dress the twins before putting them down for their nap so that they would be fresh when they arrived with her sister and her family. She was running round tidying up, still clad in her comfortable sleep shorts and a tee, when the doorbell buzzed.
Curiosity had taken Jaul straight from the airport to the address Bandar had given him. Chrissie lived in an apartment block in an expensive residential area. His beautifully shaped mouth took on a sardonic slant. He might not have paid alimony to his estranged wife but the cash his father had given her had evidently ensured that she did not starve. Not that he would’ve wanted her to starve, he told himself piously, unsettled by the vengeful thoughts and raw reactions suddenly skimming through him at lightning speed. Two years ago, lying helpless in his hospital bed, when he’d thought of her turning to other men for amusement, he had burned with merciless, bitter aggression. But that time was past, he assured himself circumspectly. Now all he sought was to draw a quiet final line below the entire messy business of a marriage that should never have taken place.
Chrissie glanced through the peephole in her door and frowned. A tall dark-haired man was on the doorstep, his back turned to the door so that she couldn’t see his face. She slipped on the security chain and opened the door. ‘Yes?’
‘Open the door,’ he urged. ‘It’s Jaul.’
Her eyes flew wide in disbelief and she flung her head back, turquoise eyes frantically peering through the crack. She caught a glimpse of his gypsy-gold skin, a hard male jawline and then her gaze moved up to impatient dark eyes surrounded by lashes thick and dark enough to resemble eye liner and long enough to inspire feminine resentment. Unforgettable, he was unforgettable and her heart started thumping in the region of her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe or vocalise. In a flash, gut reaction took over and she snapped the front door firmly closed again, spinning round in shock to rest back against it because her legs were wobbling.
Jaul swore and hit the bell again twice in an impatient buzz.
Chrissie slid down the back of the door until she was in a heap at the foot of it and hugged her knees. It was Jaul...two years too late, it was Jaul. Anguish flooded her, a sharp, sharp pain of loss and grief that she had buried long ago in the need to move on and survive his betrayal. She couldn’t believe that Jaul would just turn up like that, without any warning. But then he had disappeared without any warning, she reminded herself darkly.
The bell went again as though someone had a finger stuck to it and she flinched. Jaul was very impatient. She breathed in deep and slow, struggling to calm herself. What on earth was he doing here in London? How had he even found out her current address? And why would he come to see her after all this time? Had it anything to do with the fact that his father had died recently and he had inherited the throne? After his father’s visit Chrissie had refused to allow herself to succumb to the morbid interest of checking out Jaul on the Internet. She had closed the door very firmly on that kind of curiosity but she had, quite accidentally in early spring, read a few lines in a newspaper about his father’s sudden death.
‘Chrissie...’ he grated behind the door and his voice washed over her, accented and deep, unleashing a tide of memories she didn’t want to relive.
She squashed those memories so fast that her head literally hurt as she sprang upright. No way was she hiding behind a door from the male who had torn her life apart!
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_675c65b4-20f8-5108-8d24-3108060f94e8)
CHRISSIE PEERED OUT from behind the curtain. Jaul was stationed on the pavement, his back turned to her again. Several men in dark suits, undoubtedly his protection unit, surrounded him. Her heart was still hammering so feverishly that her chest felt tight.
She had shut the door in Jaul’s face, not the sort of welcome he was accustomed to receiving. He would be angry and when Jaul was angry he was dangerously unpredictable. Refusing to open the door had possibly not been her wisest move, Chrissie reasoned worriedly. As his imperious dark head began to turn she hid back behind the curtains and, second-guessing his next move, she returned to the front door and squared her slim shoulders. Loosening the chain she opened the door.
Jaul ground to a sudden halt with his hand still reaching out for the bell. Chrissie appeared in the doorway and he snatched in a ragged breath at the sight of the shorts and T-shirt that exposed every line of her long, slender legs and the sleek, pert curves of her breasts. Lashes swiftly veiling his gaze, he compressed his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Chrissie...’
‘What are you doing here?’ Chrissie asked woodenly, inwardly amazed at how much the passage of time altered situations. Two years ago, had he finally shown up, she would have snatched him in and covered him with grateful, loving kisses. But that time was long gone. He had broken her heart, left her to sink or swim and had never once contacted her with an explanation or even an apology. That wounding silence had spoken the loudest truth of all: Jaul had never loved her, indeed could never have really cared for her in any genuine way. If he had he couldn’t have walked away without once enquiring as to how she was.
‘May I come in? I have to speak to you,’ Jaul imparted in his rich velvety drawl.
‘If you must.’ Rigid-backed, Chrissie stepped aside. She was fighting not to look at him, not to personalise his appearance in any way. It was a mark of strength on her terms that she would see him again, deal with him and let him leave without any feelings whatsoever getting involved.
He was dressed much as she remembered in a soft leather jacket and jeans, casual and effortlessly elegant, his every physical movement a study of languorous grace. He stood six feet four inches in his sock soles, a fitting match for a girl of five feet nine, who liked high heels. Broad of shoulder, slim of hip, he had the long, powerful thighs of a horseman and the flat washboard stomach of a very fit and healthy male. Luxuriant blue-black hair brushed his shoulders, framing a lean-featured and wildly eye-catching face with a classic nose, high cheekbones and a shapely, sensual mouth. But it was his beautiful dark deep-set eyes that you noticed first and remembered longest, Chrissie reckoned, black as jet in some lights, bright as stars in a dark sky in others and pure tiger-gold enticement in the sun. Something pulled taut at the apex of her thighs, leaving a melting sensation in its wake.
Chrissie only realised how much shock she was in when she saw the children’s toys littering the lounge floor and realised in amazement that it had not once occurred to her that Jaul might be visiting to ask about the children. But how would he ever have found out about the twins when he had deserted her long before she’d even discovered that she was pregnant? And why would he show the slightest interest in the existence of illegitimate children by an ex-girlfriend? That was all she was now to him—an ex-girlfriend! He wouldn’t want to know she had fallen pregnant. He wouldn’t want to open up that can of worms, would he? Of course not. Her lush, full lips curled with scorn. Marwan wasn’t the sort of country that would turn a comfortable blind eye to the immoral doings of its king. Of course, very possibly, his relationship with Chrissie might well fall into the forgivable ‘youthful sowing of wild oats’ category, she reasoned darkly.
Without a word, Chrissie bent down to scoop up the abandoned toys and toss them into the basket by the wall.
‘You have children now?’ Jaul prompted, watching her beautiful platinum-blonde hair slide like a veil of polished silk off her shoulder to screen her profile as she bent down. His riveted gaze rested on the gleaming curve of an upturned hip, a slender section of spine and the long, taut stretch of a svelte porcelain-pale thigh.
Slender thighs that he had parted, lain between, revelled between, night after night. He had never got enough of her. His muscles pulled taut to the point of rigidity, savage sexual heat zinging through him at speed and setting up a pounding pulse at his groin. His strong white teeth ground together, rage at his lack of control gaining on him.
Chrissie thought fast while she snatched up the last brick, grateful he couldn’t see her face. It was a relief that he didn’t know about the twins, a huge relief, she conceded, but it felt unreal for Jaul to ask whether or not she had children as though they were complete strangers.
‘I’ve been babysitting...for a friend,’ she lied as lightly as she could. ‘Now, what can I help you with?’
Jaul picked up on the insolent note of that question immediately. That supposed politeness was pure honeyed Chrissie scorn and he knew it. A faint line of colour accentuated his exotic cheekbones while his dark eyes flashed as golden as the sun at midday. ‘I have something to tell you that may come as a shock...’
Chrissie tilted her head to one side, eyes bright as a turquoise sea and luminous below soft brown lashes. ‘I lived with you, Jaul. Nothing you do or say could shock me.’
Not after the way you abandoned me, but she swallowed that final assurance, too proud and too scared of losing face to risk throwing that in his teeth. But his apparent equanimity burned through her restraint like acid. It was offensive that he could approach her so casually after what he had done to her and utterly unforgivable that he should dare.
‘The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can leave,’ Chrissie quipped, dry-mouthed with the anger she was holding back.
Jaul breathed in deep and slow, fighting to master the stirring ache below his belt. It had simply been too long since he had had sex. He was a normal healthy male in need of release and there was nothing strange about the reality that proximity to Chrissie should awaken old familiar impulses. Somewhat soothed by that conviction, he settled grim dark eyes on her. ‘I have only recently learned that our marriage was legal and that is why I am here.’
So great was Chrissie’s incredulity at that news that she blinked and stumbled back against the bookcase behind her. ‘But your father said it was illegal, that it had no standing in law, that—’
‘My father was mistaken,’ Jaul incised in a smooth tone of finality. ‘My legal advisers insist that the ceremony was legal and, consequently, we are now in need of a divorce.’
Chrissie was deeply shaken by that announcement and her soft pink mouth opened a mere fraction of an inch. ‘Oh, right,’ she acknowledged while she played for time and tried to absorb the immensity of what he had just said. ‘So, all this time we’ve been apart we’ve actually been legally married?’
‘Yes,’ Jaul conceded grudgingly.
‘Well, fancy that,’ Chrissie commented in apparent wonderment. ‘Two years ago I was turned away from the door of the Marwani Embassy with the assurance that I was “delusional” even though our wedding ceremony took place there. Absolutely nobody was willing to see me, talk to me or even accept a letter for you...in fact I was threatened with the police if I didn’t leave—’
‘What on earth are you talking about? When were you at our embassy in London?’ Jaul demanded curtly, standing straight and tall and betraying not a shade of discomfiture.
She stared at him, treacherously ensnared by his sheer physical magnetism. Her tummy flipped and a flock of butterflies broke loose inside her. Jaul had an electrifying combination of animal sex appeal, hauteur and command that stopped women dead in their tracks. So good-looking, so very good-looking he had grabbed her attention at first glance even though she had known he was a player and not to be trusted. Yet she had resisted him month after month until he had caught her at a vulnerable moment and then, sadly, she too had found those broad shoulders and that lying, seductive tongue irresistible.
‘When, Chrissie?’ he repeated doggedly.
‘Oh, a little while after my imaginary husband disappeared into thin air,’ Chrissie supplied. ‘And then shortly after my final visit to the embassy, your father came to see me and explained and everything became clear.’
‘I don’t know what you hope to achieve by talking nonsense like this at a point when all either of us can want is a divorce.’
Chrissie elevated a very fine brow. ‘I don’t know, Jaul...do you think it could be anger motivating me after what you put me through?’
‘Anger has no place here. We have lived apart for a long time. I want a divorce. This is a practical issue, nothing more,’ Jaul delivered crushingly.
‘You do know that I hate you?’ Chrissie pressed shakily, a flicker of hysteria firing her that he could stand there evidently untouched as though nothing of any great import had ever happened between them. Yet once he had pursued her relentlessly and had sworn that he loved her and that only the security of marriage would satisfy him. There was nothing deader than an old love affair, a little voice cried plaintively inside her, and the proof of that old maxim stood in front of her.
Jaul was thinking of the woman who had left him lying unvisited in his hospital bed and he met her angry gaze with coldly contemptuous dark eyes. ‘Why would I care?’
He didn’t feel like Jaul any more; he had changed out of all recognition, Chrissie acknowledged numbly. He wanted a divorce; he needed a divorce. But she was still struggling to get her head around the astonishing fact that they had genuinely been married for over two years. ‘Why did your father tell me that our marriage was illegal?’
His lean, strong face tautened. ‘It was not a lie. He believed it to be illegal—’
‘But that’s not all he believed,’ Chrissie whispered. ‘He told me that you’d deliberately gone through that ceremony with me knowing it was illegal and that you could wriggle out of the commitment and walk away any time you wanted—’
‘I refuse to believe that he would ever have said or even implied anything of that nature,’ Jaul derided with an emphatic shake of his imperious dark head. ‘He was an honourable man and a caring father—’
‘Like hell he was!’ Chrissie slammed back at him in sudden fury, goaded by that provocative statement into losing all self-control. ‘I was thrown out of your apartment wearing only the clothes I was standing up in. I was treated like an illegal squatter and absolutely humiliated—’
‘These grossly disrespectful lies gain you no ground with me. I will not listen to them,’ Jaul spelt out, his beautiful, wilful mouth twisting. ‘I know you for the woman you are. My father gave you five million pounds to get out of my life and you took it and I never heard from you again—’
‘Well, admittedly I didn’t get very far at the Marwani Embassy where women claiming to be your wife, illegal or otherwise, are treated like lunatics,’ Chrissie parried flatly, declining to answer that accusation about the bank draft she had refused to use because it seemed Jaul wasn’t prepared to listen or believe anything she said in her own defence.
Chrissie could never have accepted that hateful ‘blood’ money, intended to buy her discretion and silence and dissuade her from approaching the media to sell some sleazy story about her experiences with Jaul.
Jaul set his even white teeth together. ‘I want you to leave the past where it belongs and concentrate on the important issue here...our divorce.’
Without warning, Chrissie’s eyes sparkled like gold-dusted turquoises. ‘You want a divorce to remarry, don’t you?’
‘Why I want it scarcely matters this long after the event,’ Jaul fielded drily.
‘You need my consent to get a divorce,’ Chrissie assumed, walking past him back to the front door, thinking that this time around the ball was in her court and the power hers. Jaul expected her to be understanding and helpful and give him what he wanted. But why should she be understanding? She owed him nothing!
‘Naturally...if it is to go through fast it has to be uncontested—’
‘The answer is no,’ Chrissie delivered, far from being in a cooperative frame of mind. She was bitter about the way he had treated her and stubbornly ready to make things difficult for him. ‘If we’re truly married and you now want a divorce, you’ll have to fight me for it.’
Jaul stilled in the lounge doorway, dark eyes flashing bright as a flame. ‘But that’s ridiculous...why would you do something that stupid?’
‘Because I can,’ Chrissie replied, truthful to the last word. ‘I won’t willingly do anything which suits you and I know you want to keep all this on the down-low. After all, you never did own up publicly to the shame of marrying a foreigner, did you?’
‘I believed the marriage was invalid!’ Jaul shot back at her, lean brown hands coiling into fists. ‘Why would I have talked about it?’
‘Well, most guys would at least have talked about it to the woman who believed she was married to them,’ Chrissie pointed out scornfully as she stretched out a hand to open the door. ‘But you...what did you do? Oh, yes...you ran out on me and left your daddy to clear up the mess you left behind you!’
Sheer rage at that unjust condemnation engulfed Jaul so fast he was dizzy with it. He snapped long fingers round a slender wrist before she could open the door. Smouldering dark golden eyes raked her flushed and defiant face. ‘You will not speak to me like that.’
Suppressing a spasm of dismay, Chrissie forced herself to laugh and her eyes sparkled with challenge. ‘Message to Jaul—I can speak to you any way I like and there’s not a darned thing you can do about it! You don’t deserve anything better from me after the way you treated me...’
With a contemptuous flick of his long fingers, Jaul relinquished his hold on her. Dark eyes still sparking like high-voltage wires, he scanned her with derision. ‘Is this your way of trying to push the price up? You want me to pay you to set me free from this marriage?’
A genuine laugh fell from Chrissie’s taut mouth. ‘Oh, no, I’ve got plenty of money,’ she told him blithely. ‘I don’t want a penny from you. I only want to make you sweat.’
